"He will come, because he said he would," affirmed a girl's voice. Snippets had entered the room in time to hear the last remarks. Anderson laughed tolerantly. "That sounds like a schoolgirl's admiration for Robin Hood." "Robin Hood--huh! Allen's rep is made by fools, girls, and old men," Ace snapped. "I'm tellin' yuh he ain't no good and he won't come. And we're wasting our time not havin' a rider beatin' it to Texas to get Cupid Dart, the gent I was tellin' you of." His words held a word of hate. The other men looked at him curiously. Jim Hogg scratched his head. The judge looked questioningly at the others. "I think Ace is right," Bill Anderson said judiciously. "We have all heard of Cupid Dart. Why not send for him? Even if Allen does come, it is a question if we can trust him." "Trust him? Of course you can't trust him! He's a bushwhackin' killer, who kills men by shootin' them in the back. I know men who have seen him do it." Ace's face was pale with rage. "Why do you hate him?" the girl asked quietly. "Because you are a sorta cousin of mine, and I hate to think of you having truck with a man like him," Ace replied bitterly. "I have no truck with him; I have never heard one word from him since the day he rode away after saving my father. He told me then that friendship between a girl like myself and a man like him was impossible." The girl's face was flushed. In spite of herself her voice trembled. But her eyes were steady as she looked into Ace's angry brown ones. "Darn it, the girl's in love with the little runt," Sam Hogg whispered to his brother. He went over and placed an arm about the girl's shoulder. "Ace, yuh got Allen wrong," he said defensively. "When I was in the Rangers and he hung out in Texas, I chased him plenty. And he had the rep then, among bad hombres, of bein' square. An' I don't believe he killed any gent what didn't need killin' bad." "Only men who fear him hate him," the girl said softly. Ace Cutts took a step toward her, but Anderson grasped his arm. "You fool!" he exclaimed in a whisper. His back was toward the others. His lips formed a sentence that could be read only by Ace. The young man nodded sullenly and made an effort to recover his composure. "When he comes," Snippets said anxiously to Tom Powers, "remember you promised there will be no shooting." "Are you scared I'll drop your hero?" Ace jeeringly asked. "There's going to be no gun play," Tom Powers cut in sharply. "Make him give you his word," she insisted. The worry in her voice was apparent to all. Ace was triumphant. "I promise you I won't----" he began. Sam Hogg read the reason correctly for the girl's anxiety and he interrupted sharply. "Yuh idiot! She ain't scared for the Wolf. But she's worried that yuh'll make a fool play so's the Wolf will have to drop yuh before the judge."